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Didn’t Like It “Theodore Roosevelt's account of his expedition, along with Brazilian Col. Rondon, to determine the course of the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt), later named the Rio Roosevelt. |
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“Theodore Roosevelt's account of his expedition, along with Brazilian Col. Rondon, to determine the course of the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt), later named the Rio Roosevelt.
James F wrote this review Sunday, October 14, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
After reading the narratives of Alexander von Humboldt and Henry Walter Bates, this has a totally different feel. Roosevelt, whatever his qualifications as a naturalist may have been, writes, sometimes as a politician, sometimes as a tourist, and usually as a big game hunter, but never as a naturalist.
Humboldt writes very objectively about what he observed, hardly ever commenting on the conditions of his own party or the hardships of the journey; Bates is somewhat more personal; but Roosevelt focuses almost entirely on the hazards and suffering of the expedition, continually reminding us of their merits as "real explorers" in an unknown region, compared to those who do real scientific study in areas which have already been settled to some extent, like Humboldt and Bates.
The Roosevelt-Rondon expedition lasted a couple of months, as compared to the eleven years that Bates spent doing entomology; they spent their time traveling and "collecting" -- i.e. hunting. Where Humboldt and Bates were essentially private scientists, Roosevelt was a celebrity accompanied by an essentially government mission -- until he got to the Rio da Duvida, there were flags and ceremonies everywhere he stopped. The Roosevelt-Rondon expedition was fairly large and well equipped; in contrast to Bates fifty years earlier, or Humboldt a hundred years earlier, they had flashlights, carbines, and canned foods, as well as an expedition doctor with medical supplies.
The descriptions of natural phenomena in the book are superficial, and concerned mainly with the numbers of species they "collected". The commentary seems mainly designed to convince American and European businessman of the business opportunities in South America. In short, it is an adventure narrative with a political purpose, not an account of a scientific expedition.”
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